Reimagining next generation campuses and learning environments
HBCU campuses require complex, context-driven solutions that embody the highest degree of knowledge, creativity, and fiscal diligence.
Introduction ― 4
Project Examples ― 14
Holistic Design ― 36
We uncover core story elements that resonate with society— creating transformative experiences that strengthen connections between people, place, and history.
Thoughtful design of the built environment has immense potential to bridge past and future. Our work, over many decades, has been informed by an acute sensitivity to social constructs, interest in cultural specificity, and a belief that the built environment can be a framework for sharing profound stories that move society forward. Advancing the idea that design enriches the human experience, we focus on creating environments that confirm and sustain our sense of being human through architecture that pushes past normative design to promote understanding of self and empathy for others.
We intentionally approach our HBCU work with a design process that includes direct dialogue and listening sessions with communities to uncover the unique narrative of their campus. We use inclusive strategies to engage diverse communities and celebrate shared physical and cultural legacies. We consider ourselves “agents of change” in shaping campuses, cities, and districts. We approach the planning and design of great places based on strategic global thinking, local cultural intelligence, and tested project implementation capabilities.
Creating and preserving identity in community-oriented designs is fundamental to making great spaces, sites, and campuses.
Understanding what makes a project unique results in rich, compelling places that are firmly rooted in their context.
We love details, but always in the service of the big picture. Visionary thinking leads to an inspired purpose that exemplifies client aspirations and becomes the design team’s North Star.
We’re curious. We ask thoughtful questions and listen to clients. Our research and exploration leads to discovery of the needs, priorities, context, and unique elements of each project.
Spaces and places have narratives. We interpret research and turn design opportunities into meaningful stories supported by measurable project objectives.
A great design begins with a bold, inspiring concept. Framed by requirements and opportunities, our designs propel projects forward with clarity of function and aesthetic expression.
Actualization requires resolve. We know that the best design intentions only matter when a vision becomes a finely crafted place for human experience.
‒ Strengthen connections between people
‒ Collect, share, and preserve history
‒ Build community awareness
‒ Foster memorable experiences
‒ Embrace cultural identity
‒ Create transformative experiences
‒ Celebrate memory
‒ Honor unique assets
‒ Nurture knowledge creation
We believe in the power of education to elevate the human condition—to create innovators and leaders who can resolve today’s challenges. We believe in the power of great design to shape the educational experience and inspire human success.
As institutions evolve and respond to an unpredictable future, they are continually faced with challenges in strengthening and sustaining their resources, their community, and the environment. We believe that the concept of stewardship includes planning for a future where each project protects, cultivates, and supports all three of these critically important aspects. This means programming, planning, and designing resilient facilities that frame intentional activities and outcomes and contribute to the achievement of institutional goals and objectives.
Our goal is to assist each institution to optimize their greatest assets, accomplish their academic goals, and thrive in learning, research, and community engagement. We understand the future of higher education will include five key aspects:
1. Education, research, and community engagement
2. Sustainability of people, place, and resources
3. The importance of the campus experience
4. The evolving nature of learning, teaching, and discovery
5. Doing more with less
Design excellence in architecture is for all schools in higher education. Our higher education practice welcomes the full range of learning spaces: from traditional classrooms to active, problem-based environments and adaptive learning, to use of the latest technology for hybrid curricula, instant feedback, and immersive simulation environments. The best design solutions provide flexibility for unforeseen future advancements and support current understanding of how best to accomplish learning intentions and outcomes.
We leverage the power of story and memory to celebrate the past and inform an approach to planning and design that is respectful, implementable, and transformational.
Emory University, Affinity Spaces
We have a long legacy of award winning design and placemaking for HBCU campuses.
Following is a selection of projects that reinforced the strategic planning objectives of diverse institutions — generating excitement, pride, and elevated design expectations.
Alabama State University
Master Plan
Montgomery, Alabama
Bowie State University
Communication Arts and Humanities Building
Center for Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Nursing
New Student Center
Preliminary Programming
Bowie, Maryland
Claflin University
STEM Building
Orangeburg, South Carolina
Delaware State University
Master Plan
Dover, Delaware
Elizabeth City State University
School of Pharmacy
Walter + Henrietta Ridley
Student Complex
Chancellor’s House
Renovation
Vaughn Hall Fitness Center
Chiller Plant
Campus Master Plan
School of Education and Psychology
Elizabeth City, North Carolina
Fayetteville State University
New Science Building
Lilly Gymnasium
Honors Dormitory
Kennedy Hall
Fayetteville, North Carolina
Howard University
STEM Due Diligence Study
Founder’s Library
Renovation
Center for Digital Business
Washington DC
Johnson C. Smith University
Space Utilization Study
Charlotte, North Carolina
Morehouse College School of Medicine Advisory Services
Morehouse Student Center
Campus Life Consulting
South Fulton Medical Center-Morehouse
Residency Clinic Planning Atlanta, Georgia
Morgan State University Center for the Built Environment and Infrastructure Studies Baltimore, Maryland
North Carolina A&T State University
General Academic Classroom
Undergraduate Science
Building
Smith Hall School of Technology
Samuel Proctor School of Education
Harrison Hall Addition and Renovation
Addition and Renovation
to Crosby Hall, School of Arts & Sciences and Merrick Hall, School of Business and Economics
Greensboro, North Carolina
North Carolina Central University
Bio-manufacturing Research Institute & Technology Enterprise Facility
Mary M. Townes Science Complex
Julius L. Chambers
Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute
Shepard House Renovation and Restoration Feasibility Study for Conference Center + Hotel Law School Feasibility Study
Condition Assessment & Feasibility Study for Nine Residence Halls
BN Duke Auditorium Durham, North Carolina
South Carolina State University
James E. Clyburn Transportation Research & Conference Center
Engineering + Computer Science Complex Orangeburg, South Carolina
Southern University
STEM Building Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Spelman College
Albert E. Manley College Center
Living/Learning Residence Center
Packard Hall Classroom Renovation
Albro-Falconer-Manley Science Center Atlanta, Georgia
St. Augustine’s University
St. Augustine’s University Stadium
Raleigh, North Carolina
University of Maryland
Eastern Shore
Engineering, Aviation, Computer and Mathematical Sciences
Building
Princess Anne, Maryland
West Virginia State University
Agricultural Laboratory Facility
Institute, West Virginia
Winston-Salem State University
F. L. Atkins Nursing School
Addition and Renovation
NIH Grant Study - Center for Health Disparity Translational Research
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
The design seeks to impart that “The Road to the Future Begins with You” and rallies around the notion of “Courage” as a unifying theme throughout. A pattern of levers and windows on the façade is a translated waveform of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s voice (Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech-December 11, 1964) calling upon us all to have the “Courage to Face the Uncertainties of the Future” — the embodiment of Communication Arts and Humanities.
The new Bowie State University Martin Luther King Jr. Communication Arts and Humanities (CAH) Building is an integral part of the Bowie State experience, collecting and connecting students across various fields of study into a facility that is designed to inspire collaboration and interaction. The new building is the stage upon which students are “empowered to speak” and “destined to soar.”
The shape of the plan draws upon the existing campus edges, while enhancing current landscape features and creating new campus spaces. Its placement encourages the building to become a natural extension of existing pedestrian pathways and to enhance the connectivity that already exists to the surrounding community and amenities. The auditorium—which is at the south end of the building—is visible and accessible to both the campus and community.
The east and west wings of the building are connected by two distinct entries. The threestory student entrance, at the north, connects the campus to the building. The focal point within the student entrance, known as the “Source,” houses recording studios for students and faculty, a screening room, and resource library. The glass facades on the north and south provide a visual connection through the Student Entrance, providing views as well as access on the ground floor to the centrally located courtyard. The entrance to the south, which is visible from Henry Circle, welcomes the community to the building as well as provides a reception space before and after events in the auditorium.
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Part of the design for the new building includes an enclave on the 2nd floor of the Student Inflection, which serves as a memorial to Lt. Richard Collins III, an ROTC candidate at BSU whose death in 2017 was the result of a hate crime. A two-story image of Richard is etched into felt panels and seating directly in front of the image provides an opportunity for students to collaborate, socialize, and remember Lt. Richard Collins III.
Client: Bowie State University Size: 150,000 square feet
Completion Date: 2017
Sustainability: LEED Platinum ® Awards: Excellence in Design Citation Award, AIA: Potomac Valley, 2019; Go Beyond Award, International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories, 2019; Innovative Project of the Year- New Construction-Schools, USGBC - National Capital Region, 2019; Merit Award, AIA Northern Virginia, 2019; Merit Award, AIA Georgia Design Awards, 2018; Award of Excellence, Best Institutional Facility Education, NAIOP DC Maryland Chapter, 2017; Best Projects 2017, Award of Merit- Higher Education / Research, Engineering News-Record (ENR) MidAtlantic Chapter, 2017; Honorable Mention - 2017 Education Design Showcase, College Planning and Management, 2017
Active and Didactic Learning Environments.
Bowie State University’s New Center for Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and Nursing includes undergraduate teaching laboratories and classrooms for Math, Engineering, Nursing, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Physical sciences and blended disciplines. The research lab suite includes a collaborative lab environment for chemistry, biology, and physics, with core labs for microscopy, spectrometry, and an NMR. Classrooms and layered informal learning spaces were designed to implement either active learning or didactic learning models. Several of the classrooms are adaptable to grow or reduce in size to match changing needs across disciplines as curriculum changes occur.
An engineering suite visually joins computer-aided design labs with 3D printers to allow students to witness real-time results of their work. Laboratories are transparent to the corridor to showcase the remarkable learning going on within.
Social spaces meet learning environments.
By housing multiple design and engineering disciplines under one roof, CBEIS promotes interactivity among constituent students and faculty from the School of Architecture and Planning, Department of Civil Engineering, and Institute of Transportation. As a gateway site on the campus periphery, CBEIS also mediates between the developed edge of Perring Parkway on one side and the bucolic setting of Herring Run on the other.
Multiple departments are accommodated on the four levels of the building. In the spirit of collaborative engagement, two horizontal bars bound by a sky-lit atrium that runs the length of the building create an internal street where programs mix, student vitality is expressed, and social spaces meet learning environments. The “street” features a café, lounges, information kiosk, departmental “storefronts,” visual connections to academic studio spaces, and a gallery-like space for the interactivity of people and display of their work.
CBEIS also serves as a laboratory for sustainability in design and engineering. The building’s daylighting strategies, resource conservation, multiple forms of daylight harvesting, two green roof systems, and traditional rooftop photovoltaics (PV) panels combined with curtain wall-integrated PV collectors serve as pedagogical reference points. To further illustrate the dynamic and integrated nature of the building systems, atrium displays graphically monitor performance relative to climatic and occupancy variances.
In the spirit of collaborative engagement, two horizontal bars bound a sky-lit atrium that runs the length of the building, creating an internal “street” where programs mix, student vitality is expressed, and social spaces meet learning. environments.
The building program consists of two primary components: teaching environments that include a lecture hall and other classrooms and labs, and an administrative/ faculty component that includes offices for the Education and Psychology departments. The faculty offices are supported by a departmental reception area, faculty lounges, conference rooms, and storage/work rooms. The dean’s suite has an independent conference room, reception, and support spaces. The facility also includes a curriculum resource center and library and a central lobby with meeting and study spaces for students. Audiovisual systems accommodate distance learning, video conferencing, and other education methodologies.
The project is one of North Carolina’s most energy-efficient public buildings and a model for energy and water conservation. Utilizing geo-thermal wells, an enthalpy wheel, high-performance glazing, and other advanced building systems, the design exceeds ASHRAE standards by 34%.
Architecturally, the building is conceived as a simple rectangular volume from which public spaces have been “carved.” The solid areas of the building house an office wing to the west, a classroom and lab wing to the east, and a utility support core to the south. The “carved” voids between and below these spaces form an intimate academic plaza, enclosed on three sides and flanked by an entrance colonnade leading to the main lobby. Additional “carvings” produce an entry porch from the east parking area to the same central lobby.
Atlanta, Georgia
BRITE is part of a statewide initiative to make North Carolina a premier provider of skilled workers for the biotechnology industry. The facility houses laboratories and classrooms for faculty providing undergraduate and graduate education in the areas of Process Development, Quality Control, and Quality Assurance. The facility, representative of the development labs found in industry, allows students to get hands-on training as part of their college experience.
While connected to the Science Center for pedagogical purposes, the intent of BRITE was to establish its own image and story within the campus. While standing apart in scale and form, the building uses similar materials to harmonize with its surrounding context.
The west elevation is derived from the contours of an unfolded DNA strand to reflect the institute’s biomanufacturing teaching mission.
BRITE’s design reflects a simple stratification of office, circulation, lab support, and lab from east to west, respectively. The east elevation facing the courtyard is a semi-transparent curtain wall, while the west elevation is masonry with vertical windows. The east/office side of the building facing the courtyard is more expressive of the individual (faculty) and thus more contemplative and connected to the green space through transparency. The west side is conceived as a team environment and cloistered by a masonry shell that protects the interior environment from the western sun.
Baltimore, Maryland
Size: 165,000 square feet
Facilitating and promoting interactivity among respective departments and individual users, this building has a dual relationship to the overall UMES campus: it addresses the existing main campus, respecting the aesthetic of its Georgian architecture, while serving as the landmark of a future campus on a new quadrangle.
The primary design element for solving this duality is an atrium that runs the length of the building, acting as an internal street that connects both campuses. The internal street at the ground level is conceived as a gallery-like space for displaying the interaction of people and the products of their work. Activity here is defined by major classrooms, lecture hall, food service, lounge space, displays, and resource room.
On the upper levels, lounge space, small group rooms, seminar rooms, public stairs, and physical as well as visual access to laboratories and classrooms promote synergy between departments.
Dover, Delaware
Client: Delaware State University
Size: 613,143 square feet
Awards: MERIT Award, Analysis & Planning, Boston Society of Landscape Architects, 2023
The reimagined
framework fosters innovation and collaboration through a node and network system that supports the technological, scholastic, social, and creative needs of the students.
Delaware State University strives to become America’s most diverse and contemporary HBCU by expanding its capacity to provide a life-changing, high-quality, low-cost education to 10,000+ students and having a significant, measurable impact on the social, technological, and economic challenges that face the State, the nation, and the world. The University’s diverse network of campuses presents an opportunity to serve a greater demographic of students with programs aligned with talent and work force needs to have a stronger presence as a regional institution in the State of Delaware.
The civic spine acts as an iconic gateway to the campus, forming the signature organizing open space at the heart of the university.
A new outdoor pavilion functions as a social hub for students to collaborate, hold events, and socialize with connections to the adjacent athletic precinct.
The reimagined campus framework fosters innovation and collaboration through a node and network system that supports the technological, scholastic, social, and creative needs of the students
A holistic approach has been taken in providing the facilities and programs necessary to support students in achieving high performance in the classroom as well as on the court, ensuring both mind and body are equally nurtured.
Prioritizing natural systems to manage rainwater, integrating sponge landscape infrastructure into streets, open spaces, and buildings for a more resilient, eco-friendly environment.
The landscape planning approach prioritizes a biodiverse campus ecosystem that supports a wide range of native species and seasonal landscapes.
Greensboro, North Carolina
The building that houses the General Academic Classrooms anchors the southern end of the campus green and plays an important role in connecting campus paths and sightlines. The program is arranged on three levels around a central atrium. Office and administrative spaces are concentrated in a narrow bar, with northern views across the campus green. This section of the building is elevated on piloti to form a “front porch” that invites students from the campus green to enter the central atrium.
Students walk from the cafeteria and library through a courtyard framed by two wings of the building. Large classroom spaces are organized at the ground level, forming a plinth that slides into the contours of the site and creates a base for smaller classrooms above. Circulation, informal meeting, and study zones occupy the interstitial spaces between the formal program areas that surround the atrium.
North Carolina
The Education Building is organized into two “bars” connected by a central “street” and atrium space. The western bar, which contains primarily faculty offices, takes advantage of the views of the quad and bell tower and is a more permeable volume. The eastern bar contains classrooms and is a more opaque volume that addresses the vehicular scale of Benbow Road. This classroom bar cantilevers out over the auditorium space and an open-air plaza to define a gateway to the campus green and bell tower plaza for pedestrians entering campus from Benbow Road to the east.
The main administrative offices and dean’s suite are placed at the north end of the classroom bar, providing both a level of privacy relative to the public zones and a strong visual connection to the campus green and bell tower. The central street that connects the two bars and runs parallel to the east edge of the campus green is the conceptual heart of the scheme. More than a simple means of circulation through campus and the building, the space is the social hub of the entire building.
The design encourages interaction and socialization between faculty, administration, and students.
Client: Emory University Size: 18,500 square feet
Completion Date: 2023
In addition to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, a sense of belonging impacts student success by ensuring people can bring their full, authentic selves to the conversation. At Emory University, student identity spaces are a physical space to support affinity or cultural groups on campus. It is a place for students to feel belonging as they learn and build community related to race, gender, sexuality, and more.
The new Cox Hall spaces provide the connection and intersectionality desired by these communities and serve to empower, reaffirm, and arm students with the tools needed to make change and make their mark in the world. A vital piece of this project is story and engagement. Our team is committed to giving vision to the students’ voices from each group, spark change through design, and activate excellence through thoughtful delivery of this project.
Renovations to Emory
University’s Cox Hall, providing identity spaces for various campus student groups.
Improved experience. Increased productivity. Resiliency. Operational efficiency. Better utilization. Energy and cost savings.
We fully examine an institution’s physical and cultural place with an eye on tempered actions to improve the student and faculty experience.
We invite you to explore our featured integrated services in the pages that follow.
Since 1935, we’ve been on a mission to create beautiful spaces that inspire. To respect and restore our natural world. To foster feelings of belonging and holistic well-being in the built environment. To relentlessly pursue knowledge and innovation.
As the world grapples with increasingly complex social issues, climate challenges, and threats to biodiversity, we’re turning our aspirations into action. Through a holistic approach we call Living Design, we treat every project as an opportunity to make the world a better, healthier place.
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The Living Design Framework empowers— and challenges—us to apply our values to the specific context of a given project. When we are intentional in allowing each driver to shape our work, we uncover purpose-driven design solutions and achieve something greater: Living Design. Our approach to Living Design fully embraces the mission of the International Living Future Institute, whose values we share and best practices we employ.
Whether it’s an office, campus, neighborhood, public park, or entire city, Living Design is the philosophy that guides our work. We carefully evaluate every project through seven lenses, or design drivers: Poetics & Beauty, Conceptual Clarity, Research & Innovation, Technology & Tectonics, Community & Inclusion, Resilience & Regeneration, and Health & Well-being.
Our design drivers are carefully crafted to best serve our clients and the whole of life: that is, every living species and the habitats they depend on. Each driver is measured by key performance indicators that assess qualitative or performance-based impact. By being more intentional in our process and purposeful in our outcomes, we’re doing our part to create a healthier world.
We are pioneers of the sustainability movement. From carbon leadership and energy reduction to building transparency and healthy materials, our collective achievements have been recognized over the decades with dozens of industry accolades. Most recently, Architizer named us the 2023 Best Sustainable Firm, and Metropolis recognized us as Firm of the Year in its 2022 Planet Positive Awards. We’ve earned a reputation for making design greener.
Today, we’re pushing beyond sustainability toward regeneration—toward a planet that’s flourishing with life, abundant with nature’s beauty, ecologically diverse, and continuously self-healing. We simply won’t settle for a world that’s “less bad” than it was yesterday; we strive for good, always. And we’ll settle for nothing less than a world that’s safe and enduring.
It all starts with Living Design.
Design Drivers
Poetics & Beauty
Enduring design that is aesthetically moving and imbued with meaning.
Conceptual Clarity
Context, design intent, and reasoned position.
Research & Innovation
Exploration and discovery that lead to new knowledge, pushing beyond the limitations of today to solve the most complex problems of tomorrow.
Technology & Tectonics
The seamless assembly of the many disparate parts of a built environment into a cohesive, elegant, and well-crafted place.
Community & Inclusion
Empathy and compassion nourish our culture of justice, equity, and bring diverse voices to the process. Design has the power to touch lives, make memories, and bring people together around a common vision.
Resilience & Regeneration
Design solutions that protect, restore, and enhance the functioning of natural systems and a diversity of life—a must in a rapidly changing world with finite resources.
Health & Well-Being
Design that promotes physical, mental, emotional, and social vitality for life in all its many forms, resulting in a thriving and diverse ecosystem.
Higher education campuses have evolved from the traditional model of rigid organizational structures housed in buildings to more shared environments of knowledge, partnerships, and flexibility. The campus itself is being redefined as a network of immersive education, social and cultural experiences, and industry skills. Our approach focuses on breaking down silos and what will be seen as significant cultural shifts in the education model. As planners, designers and engineers, we see opportunities in bridging silos in research and innovation, student mobility, blurring campus boundaries as the evolving education model.
Interdisciplinar
For universities to continue to be dynamic, agile, and at the forefront of their missions in this evolving higher education landscape, it is important to have a perspective that will break down traditional silos with the integration of the academic mission, physical facilities, and financial realities.
We believe our collaborative and deeply inclusive process is valuable to universities in uncovering the hard truths to meeting evolving student needs. We have honed our planning approach to shift away from traditional static plans to dynamic and agile Master Plans. They serve as powerful guiding tools for universities in decision making, near and long-term thinking, and ways to be resilient in the face of uncertainty. This leads to consensus and ownership amongst stakeholders, leadership, and student community at the highest level.
Campus planning sets the stage that enables an institution’s physical environment to fully support its mission and vision. Perkins&Will’s approach to campus planning and design is strategic, deeply collaborative, sustainable, and data-driven. Our work is informed by internationally recognized specialists in a diverse array of higher education project types. For each project, we delve deeply to understand its distinct context, setting, and goals. Every plan is a unique response that provides a flexible and inspirational road map for the future, to support innovation, promote stewardship, and strengthen community. Our team has led many such campus planning efforts bringing bold design strategies, people-first sensibility, vibrancy, and community collaboration.
A successful branded environment tells a story, and turns spaces into places where people feel engaged, connected, inspired and motivated. When higher education’s institutional brand meets great design, places are born that help shape and support student life and academic achievement—places that connect and inspire our future leaders and innovators.
A great branded environment has the power to create an unforgettable experience.
When we collaborate with students, faculty, and staff, we discover the differentiating characteristics, foundational truths, and cultural moments that together capture and reflect a University’s very essence—the qualities that define your school and help shape great experiences.
When we bring these qualities to life, the results are environments that tap emotions, instill pride, engage the mind, and inspire learning, discovery, creativity, and innovation—environments that in addition to nurturing personal growth, emanate diversity and inclusivity. We explore the stories that set you apart and turn those into transformative environments.
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